EBERT AND THE KAISER

Evening Star, Issue 17086, 3 July 1919, Page 4

EBERT AND THE KAISER

gPROTECTING THE I/ATTER'S PKOPEETXES. Before Emperor William fled from his military beadquai-fcers at Spa into Holland he spent a week at the Palace of Wilhelmshohe, near Cassel—a palace which served as a gilded prison to Napoleon 111. during the greater part of the Franco-German War of 1870, after his surrender at Sedan. While there he discussed with a number of Iris most trusted advisers the question of has abdication, the necessity for which, if even only as a temporary measure, had forced itself upon his reluctant attention. During four days of his sojourn at Wilkehnshohe Ebert, whom he had summoned from Berlin, was a guest under his roof (says F. Cun-liffe-Owen, in the ' New York Herald'). He knew Ebert quite well. In the earlier stapes of the war, and even previous thereto, he had on a number of occasions called the ex-saddler and Socialist member of the Reichstag to his palace at Berlin, and also at Potsdam, to talk over various matters! and it was mainly owing to this that the German Socialists at the outset of the war in 1914 gave their support to the Imperial Government on the plea of patriotism. Indeed, Ebert used in those days to go by the name of the Kaiser's pot Socialist (HausSocialist). During the four days' stay of Ebert at Wilhelmshohe William's withdrawal to Holland was finally decided upon, his consent I thereto beiriff given in return for a solemn pledge by Ebert in the name of his group that' the "live! and psjvata property of the Kaiser and of the members of his family would be safeguarded. After the Emperor had taken up his residence in Holland, Ebert and his friends found that they would be unable, to fulfil their promise to the Kaiser unless he affixed his signature to an act of abdication. William sipned the act of abdication at Amerongen under protest, and shortly afterward received from Berlin, through the agency of Ebert, a sum of money amounting to a quarter of a million dollars, though whether derived from his private property or from the Crown lands of Prussia it is impossible to state. Since then Ebert has paid a number of visits to the ex-Crown Princess of Germany, I who remains with her children at Potsdam^ occupying, not tho Neuc-s Palais or any of I the other large palaces there, but tho so- [ called Marble Palaazino, which belonged to Princess Liegnitz, the morganatic consort of King Frederick William 111. of Prussia, and which.' ever since her death in 1870, h?s formed part of the private property of tho reisming family of Prussia. The reason given for these visits of President Ebert is' the alleged necessity of discussing- with her matters concerning the. private property of the Hohenzollerns, with which she is empowered to deal by her father-in-law, the ex-Kaiser. Enjoying a greater amount of popularity and regard than any other member of the House of Hohenzollern, she and her children have been left wholly unmolested in all the disturbances that have taken place in and around Berlin since tho flight of the Kaiser to Holland five months ago, and it is believed by many that in tho event of an ultimate restoration of the monarchy in Prussia the crown will be vested in her eldest son, the now 13-yoar-old Prince Frederick William, with some such statesman as the former Chancellor Prince Von Buknv as regent during the boy's minority.